A yoga teacher breaks down how to structure a Muladhara chakra class around standing poses held 30 to 60 seconds, like Warrior I and Chair pose. The focus is grounding and stability through strong postures, verbal cues tied to breath and imagery, and the teacher's confident presence to help students feel empowered.
Hello everybody, welcome. Today we're going to talk about the first chakra and what postures that we can use in our yoga sequences to represent the first chakra and to help people sort of break through the first chakra. This is the first in a 7-part series on the chakras where I'll go over each one and postures that you can use with those chakras. So specifically, we're going to be talking about postures and chakras versus what the chakras are about. That's a whole different series. So let's get into it. So the first chakra is the Muladhara chakra, and the Muladhara chakra is about safety, stability, home, It's about security, it's about money and finances. So if people have struggled with trauma in their childhood, the first chakra is going to be definitely affected. You can see this just in their outward appearance, so in their, their weight. So if you see someone who's very, very underweight, that person has deficiency in their first chakra generally. If you see someone who is more overweight, that person has excess in in their first chakra typically. Now, obviously, this is all just more of a spiritual anatomy versus a definitive anatomy. So, it just depends on you individually, and it depends on people individually. So, we can't generalize anything. But in general, if we could generalize, this is what the chakra is about. So, the color of the Muladhara chakra is red. And so, when I would teach, I would teach a 7-week chakra journey in my yoga teacher training, and it really helped people to transform and transcend through their chakras and help to work their own way through the chakras and help them to balance their chakras. That 7-week training is actually included as one of the bonuses in my course, so you can teach it to your students. And that's included. You can just go to masterclass.milliondollaryoga.com and take my masterclass and, you know, see what's included in the course. It's pretty amazing. It can really help you. But the 7-week chakra journey really was— most of my students said that was the highlight of their yoga teacher training. So the first chakra, I would ask everyone to wear red because red is the symbol of the first chakra. So if you're working with the first chakra energy and you want to help transform that, work with the energy of red. And some people will even take it to like eating foods that are the colors of the chakras. So that's, you know, another thing you do. But the postures that I would teach to match up with the first chakra are really standing postures. So strong standing postures, and not even necessarily balancing postures, because I think that's more like third chakra, Manipura. But the, the The first chakra postures are more like your Virabhadrasana 1, Virabhadrasana 2. You'll have your exalted warrior in the first chakra, and you want long holds. So you want to have maybe, um, a Parsvakonasana, um, you want to have a triangle pose, a Trikonasana, and you want to hold these postures for a long time. So like 30-second holds. And it may seem like to you as a yoga teacher that it's a really long time. It might feel like, wow, I'm holding this pose and I'm up here in front of everyone and this is like forever and my people must be getting very frustrated. And if you're teaching live, you look at their faces and they're like, like they might kill you. But really what's happening when that happens, when someone looks at you in yoga class and they, they have this like kind of angry face, It's, it's more like a default expression. It has nothing to do with you. It's just a relaxation of the muscles in their face because they're in the yoga class. So in a way, it's actually like you're doing a good thing. So do— when I do a first chakra class, I do really strong long holds, and I do them for an extended period of time. And I might like— so I primarily teach vinyasa yoga, but I also teach hatha and jivamukti and ashtanga and restorative and yin, whatever, a number of different kinds of classes. But when I'm teaching a vinyasa style class, I will do like 3 postures and then a vinyasa, or I might, if I'm really like wanting them to focus, I might just do one. And sometimes when I'm doing a Virabhadrasana 2, I'm gonna be like, um, having them hold their arms out for a long extended time. And then I might say to them, if you want, you can flip your palms up so that you can hold your arms out longer. And the whole time that they're holding these poses, I'm talking, I'm talking, I'm talking, I'm talking, I'm talking. I'm talking about the first chakra. I'm talking about safety, home, and stability. I'm saying things like If you experienced trauma as a child, now is the time that you are taking a stand. I want you to take a deep inhale and then exhale through the nose. Take a deep inhale, pulling in the energy of the space, pulling in the energy of the earth, pulling in the energy of strength throughout your body. And then as you exhale, I want you to release all of the things that are holding you back. I want you to release all the traumas of the past, all of the things that have stopped you from being able to stand strong. Let them go. And I might even say on the exhale, we're going to make a loud sound as we release. Haaa! Right? We just let that go. I hope you weren't somewhere where that was weird, but anyhow, just let it go. And that That's kind of the essence of the first chakra class is you really build them up. And at the end of class, when you've done these super long holds, these like 30 to 60-minute holds— or 30 to 60-minute, like we're teaching Iyengar or something. 30 to 60-second holds. And you've done these for a long period of time. And they made it through like a 50-minute standing sequence before you even went to the floor, they're gonna feel amazing. And I don't think it's— it's— I think you can go through the same thing over and over again. Like, I think you can do multiple Virabhadrasana 1s, multiple Virabhadrasana 2s. I think you can do your side angle, you can do your triangle, and, you know, mix it up a little bit and maybe give them some relief. Let them do a few, like, Ardha Chandrasana, some half moons, throw them in there, you know, like let them have some release. But, uh, even like a really strong Utkatasana is going to give them that strong stability in their legs, and their legs should feel like Jell-O when they're done. Most of the time— all the time, actually— I've never had anybody leave one of my first chakra classes and not feel freaking empowered. Like, when they get done with this class, they're gonna feel strong and powerful. But a lot of it has to do with your words. It has to do with what you're saying and how you're building them up. And you need to learn to be charismatic and feel comfortable with that because that's the only way that you can help them to grow in their first chakra. Because you've got to be strong. Your words, your actions, your body language needs to be strong for your students. Okay, so that's first chakra postures that you can use in the first chakra. Please subscribe. Have a wonderful day, and I'll see you tomorrow. For Chakra 2. Bye!
